COOLEY CALLS DE LEO HIS COHORT IN BRIBERY

Robert Cooley, testifying Thursday outside a federal jury`s presence, said he used attorney Pat De Leo as a middleman to pass bribes to at least a dozen judges whom Cooley didn`t know well.

''Yes sir, we won every case,'' testified Cooley, formerly a crooked lawyer who said he did all the defense work for De Leo`s politically connected law firm for about three years in the 1970s.

The testimony came as lawyers for De Leo and former Judge David Shields clashed on the fourth day of their joint trial on charges of taking bribes from Cooley, an undercover government informant, in return for favorable court rulings.

Prosecutors Michael Shepard and Thomas Durkin contend that in 1988 De Leo accepted three bribe payments totaling $11,000 and passed $6,000 of that to Shields, then the presiding judge of Cook County Chancery Court.

Dan Webb, Shields` lawyer, contends that De Leo pocketed the money and falsely claimed, in conversations secretly recorded by Cooley, that he had paid off Shields.

In pursuing that defense Thursday, Webb asked Cooley in front of jurors whether De Leo ''would lie to you to make money and could not be trusted?''

De Leo`s lawyer, Samuel V.P. Banks, objected to the question, but U.S. District Court Judge Ilana Rovner allowed Cooley to answer.

''He had on a prior occasion,'' Cooley said before Banks cut him off with another objection.

The jury was then ushered from the courtroom, and Rovner, to hear what Cooley would say, allowed Webb to continue questioning him.

Shepard then bore in with more questions, and Cooley leveled his charge that De Leo had been his bagman in handing over bribes to at least 12 judges- none of them Shields-in the 1970s.

Cooley added that he had a reason to distrust De Leo, saying his friend had tried to cheat him out of legal fees on two criminal cases that De Leo had referred to him.

The clients had paid De Leo, instead of Cooley, and after Cooley learned De Leo had received the money, he brought it to De Leo`s attention and received his share, Cooley said.

When Rovner ruled she would allow the government to bring out the damaging evidence before the jury, Banks asked that De Leo be allowed a separate trial. Rovner rejected the motion.

Just as jurors were about to return, Webb suddenly said that at the personal wish of Shields, he would withdraw his question about whether De Leo could be trusted.

Rovner then told jurors to disregard both the question and Cooley`s brief response.

But she later agreed to let prosecutors bring out De Leo`s alleged crooked past to establish why Cooley doesn`t believe De Leo ''scammed'' in the 1988 case and pocketed all the bribes.

Yet Cooley, undergoing his second day of questioning by defense lawyers, admitted he became ''very concerned'' when he learned from De Leo that he hadn`t been able to pass the final bribe to Shields four days after Cooley had given him the money.

Banks, attempting to attack Cooley`s credibility, asked lengthy questions about his admitted sordid past as a Chicago police officer and defense lawyer. As an officer, Cooley said, he took his first bribe from an undisclosed South Side alderman after a traffic stop. Cooley refused to call it a bribe, saying he had already let the alderman go when he gave him $5 to $10.

Cooley said he routinely received $50 bribes-and later paid them as a lawyer-on drunken-driving cases in Traffic Court.

''It happened every day I was in there,'' he said. ''Anyone who worked in the courtroom on a regular basis either paid or lost.''